“The low consumption at the end of 2013 was mostly due to the English season being late, as there had been very poor weather in the summer,” explains Barlow.“This resulted in the English apple season being around four weeks later than the previous year, causing a decrease in sales. These poor sales lasted right through to January, when we finally began to see a revival of the situation.”
Barlow believes the rising rates of apple consumption in the UK are in part due to the advertising and communications programme that the English apple industry invested £250,000 in, and which started in January. This campaign was intended to increase both the sales and consumption of apples in the UK.
“Even though this programme has only been running for around five weeks now, I certainly think it has been very encouraging.”
“What I believe is interesting is that the sales of all English apples have increased by an average 24% compared to twelve months ago. This is a measurement from the current season, running from the end of July until the current date. This is an incredibly encouraging result. Of course, some of this increase is due to import replacement, so we can’t assume the consumption has seen the same rise. Right now we are set to have all Cox apples sold by the middle of March, which is extraordinarily early, probably the earliest it has been in over 100 years.”
In contrast to other varieties, however, the harvest volume of Cox was down compared to previous years. This is mainly due to reduced demand for the variety.
Unlike Cox, Gala has the largest production ever in the UK. According to Barlow, Gala sales are up 40% compared to a year ago.
“Although there have been some supermarket promotions, I believe this increase is due to retailers stocking English Gala apples instead of their imported counterparts. Assuming we get a good crop next season, we are expecting even better results next year. Braeburn also had a record crop, with sales slightly ahead of last year, but we aren’t even halfway through the crop yet. Bramley has had a miraculous recovery after two years of being limited due to small crops because of the weather. Last year we had a better crop, but consumers had gotten out of the habit of buying this variety. But this year the sales are up 30%.”
Some of the newer varieties have also done very well, Adrian says.
“This includes Rubens, Jazz, Kanzi, Cameo, and some very new ones that have just come onto the shelves, like Junami, and in smaller volumes Crimson Crisp, and Envy.”
The last year has seen a huge amount of pressure on the market for import, due to the Russian ban. This has led to a surge in the quantities of apples and pears in Europe, made even bigger due to a large crop resulting from the favourable weather, last growing season.
“We have been lucky. The supermarkets in general have been supportive of the English industry and have paid more for English crop than they did for product from the continent, which has shielded us from the worse effects of the surplus production and very low prices.”
A number of new markets for English apples have also been opened for the first time, including Vietnam, Singapore and Malaysia.
“This is a trend I expect to continue,” says Adrian. “We have to continue to avoid saturation of the market and export abroad. It helps that British product is viewed as high quality in many countries and so is sought after. We have been working with DEFRA and UKTI to find new market opportunities. It is very early stages, but we will see a continuing increase in export.
For more information:
Adrian Barlow
English Apples and Pears
Tel: +44 1732 529781
Email: eaplimited@aol.com